Zebrafish Stem Cells Could Repair Human Blindness

Zebrafish Stem Cells Could Repair Human Blindness

Zebrafish Stem Cells Could Repair Human Blindness

Now-a-days, stem cells are widely in discussion because of their potential therapeutic use. These biological cells have the typical ability to differentiate into diverse specialized cell types and self-renew themselves to produce more stem cells.

With such new discoveries these stem cells are found to provide life to the vision-less human eyes. The genetic researchers have done experiments and found out that stem cells from zebrafish could restore the eyesight to people by regulating the damaged cone cells in retinas. To restore the day-time colour vision in the people with damaged eyesight, it is very important to repair the cones, a photo-receptor cell in retina.
Studies on regulating the rods, one of the most important photoreceptor cells that provide night vision, have been a great success till date. But now, for the first time, new researches say that damaged cones can also be repaired by stem cell therapy.
Previously, most experiments were conducted on nocturnal rodents, animals that require good night vision and have far more rods than cones, in order to repair the damaged rods in human retinas. The researcher Ted Allison, University of Alberta and his team found out the particular gene in zebrafish that activates the repair of damaged cones. This stem cell therapy is making it possible for a human to see the beautiful nature.